As regulators implement the new financial reform law, a coalition of companies that use derivatives to hedge risk has been quietly lobbying for exemptions from some collateral requirements. Its argument: The requirements would cost at least 100,000 jobs and pull billions of dollars of investment capital from the struggling economy.

The Coalition for Derivatives End-Users — a group of about 270 companies and business associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable — are contending that nonfinancial companies should not be held to the same collateral standards, or so-called margin requirements, as Wall Street firms.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expected to release draft regulations later this month. And the coalition already has weighed in by making dozens of lobbying visits and sending about a dozen letters to the commission, said Chamber Vice President Tom Quaadman.

The coalition’s members also have been busy lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill in case the CFTC doesn’t side with it.

In recent weeks, Quaadman said he has met with 13 Democratic and Republican freshmen to “make them understand how the major employers in their districts and states are going to be hampered in creating new jobs if they’re going to have to tie money up because of ambiguities in the new law.”

Earlier this week, the coalition released a study to back its point: A 3 percent margin requirement on the derivatives transactions of S&P 500 companies would reduce their capital spending by $5.1 billion to $6.7 billion annually and cost 100,000 to 130,000 jobs.

“This issue is so connected to jobs,” Quaadman said.

To further drive home that point, the coalition pushed senators from both parties to sign a letter, urging the CFTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department “to move forward with implementation ... cautiously so that the overhaul of our derivatives market is completed properly and without unintended consequences.”

Drafted by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) and signed by a dozen of his Republican and Democratic colleagues, the letter echoed the coalition’s message, warning that margin requirements would hurt companies, consumers and, ultimately, the economy.

“Imposing margin requirements on those who engage in hedging of legitimate business risks would not only blatantly disregard the end-user exemption and congressional intent, but it could also have the effects of draining scarce working capital from the balance sheets of mainstream American companies,” the senators wrote. “Regulators must be cautious to prevent such a result, as it could stunt needed economic growth and produce higher costs for consumers.”

The message seems to be having an impact.

Last week, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said regulators shouldn’t impose margin requirements on nonfinancial companies because they don’t carry the same risks as trades by Wall Street firms. Manufacturers, brewers and other off-Wall Street companies often use derivatives to reduce the price volatility of raw materials.

“Proposed rules on margin requirements should focus only on transactions between financial entities rather than those transactions that involve nonfinancial end-users,” Gensler said in testimony before the House Agriculture Committee.

Still, not everybody’s buying the coalition’s argument that regulations will cost jobs.

“The notion that this is about jobs, I feel, is offensive. We just had a meltdown in the economy that cost 8 million jobs that derivatives were a large part of,” said AFL-CIO senior legal and policy adviser Heather Slavkin. “The idea that these companies who are sitting on boatloads of capital, that somehow this is going to cost more jobs is ridiculous.”

Seeking to dismiss the argument that margin requirements will cost jobs, Slavkin said, “By definition, labor unions are concerned about jobs. It’s sort of who we are.”

The union supports collateral requirements for companies dealing in derivatives.

“We think that all parties that are playing in this market need to have money to back their bets,” she said.

And margin requirements would bring transparency to the transactions. If a company swaps derivatives without collateral, the bank incorporates a huge fee into the transaction, which essentially acts as a high-interest loan that the company doesn’t have to put on its books, she said.

“In other words, when an end-user enters an uncollateralized swap with a bank, the bank is still taking on credit risk, and that risk is substantially similar to an uncollateralized loan or a credit facility,” Slavkin wrote earlier this month to the SEC on behalf of the union-backed Americans for Financial Reform. “An uncollateralized swap transaction, therefore, is really two transactions — a hedging transaction and a loan. The bank charges the end-user for this implied loan by embedding a fee in the swap transaction.”

The letter urges the SEC to ensure that the two transactions — the derivatives swap and the transaction fee — are separately reported, which would give the SEC another tool to evaluate the derivatives market.

“More importantly, however, it will provide end-users with the information they need to shop for the best price and make informed decisions about whether choosing to use the regulated, cleared swaps market is more cost effective,” the letter said.

In an interview, Slavkin added, “We want people to be honest about what they’re doing.”